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Financial Companies Ask IM Companies To Work Together
sammy.lost-angel.com writes "From
this
CNET article: "Two weeks ago, six top financial institutions met privately with AOL Time Warner, Microsoft, IBM and other leading corporate instant messaging providers and urged them to build communications networks that interoperate." The article even talks about Jabber."
External FINANCIAL influence always makes a difference.
every 4 years over 250 Million taxpayers get together to beg the government to work as a team and look how far that's gotten!
I've dirtied my hands writing poetry, for the sake of seduction; that is, for the sake of a useful cause. --Dostoevsky
Trillian - Who cares if they work together? Trillian's still damn good, and despite threats of legal action, works with all the major IM networks (besides Jabber). It even has a quite nice IRC client.
Oops!
wouldn't it be great if there was also an API? then there could be display clients on your machine, and you could interact with your online buddies as if, say, you were at a bar, e.g. Neal Stephenson's Metaverse. How cool is that.
AOL has announced plans to introduce a for-fee service for corporations, but has yet to set a launch date. However, the company has talked about introducing such a service since early 2001.
That's smart. Far better a company keep paying AOL thousands a month than set up a Jabber server for, uh, nothing.
Good marketing model, fellows.
The opposite of progress is congress
Works fine for me.
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
The non-Pro version of Trillian is and continues to stay free. I am right now on four IRC channels and (gulp) MSN Messenger through Trillian.
I will pay for Trillian if and when there is a Trillian for Linux.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
AOL is one of the worst companies when it comes to intrusive ads... Just look what they did with netscape, forcing them to remove the ad-removal options. Unless the united IM supports ads that aol can profit from they will never get on board.
GoatPigSheep, the 3 most important food groups
I got my MSN Messenger account when I was working at a tech school. MSN Messenger was a handy way of knowing when someone was in, out, teaching or at lunch. It's all in how you use it.
Before that, when I was working at a bandwidth provider that went spectacularly out of business, we used a MUSH in a similar fashion. Being that many people worked off-site, the MUSH was extremely effective.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
and we use Jabber in house like mad to bridge all the other protocols. With Jabber I can ICQ, AIM, Yahoo all acrossed a validated http proxy. In house we also use Lotus Sametime, which IMHO SUCKS horribly compared to any of the other clients.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
John
Very little, but it does have it's strengths... For example, you can easily send files back and forth without having to share a folder over the whole network, and it prevents people from e-mailing 2-meg documents back and forth all day, which not only wastes time, but also bandwidth. I haven't set people up with IM's in the office where I work, but I have thought about it. Perhaps it doesn't seem like such a bad idea in my case since it is a small business and half the employees are owners as well, so wasted time comes out of their pocket in the end anyway... heh
Run a little sample survey, and see how many users have communicated with people outside of work, at least once using the IM. Chances are you will find all but one or two have.
They are also another vector for virus infection, unless you configure your firewall properly.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Yeah, I read that paper... A co-worker of mine IM'ed it to me today.
how many users have communicated with people outside of work
And that is counter-productive? I have a close circle of personal friends who are all programming gurus. I consult with them about work problems all the time. And, I also BS with them.
Take away one and you take away the other. My gains in productivity from talking with them will be gone along with the time I waste communicating with them for recreation (or, maybe I'd just resort to e-mail or telephone calls instead).
I am using Gaim, and I have connections going to IRC, AOL, MSN, Yahoo, and ICQ. All work great, plus everything works as a plugin. I even have a plugin loaded the checks my out-going messages spelling. :-)
We use Jabber for a distributed (multi-state) group of developers. Perhaps I should just knuckle under and pay for long distance? (I'm sure telecom stockholders would appreciate my efforts). I think you lack an understanding of how IM is used by professional developers - we don't sit all day chatting about the weather, how 3l33t we are or throwing MP3s to each other; we get quick answers to questions that would otherwise hold up programming a module.
Additionally, I love it when people use this to communicate outside the building - rather that than the Cell going off during a meeting because the wife needs some fixings for dinner on the way home.
The reality is it depends on the maturity of your team. All of my team members are mature enough to use IM as a tool. Those who were not mature enough were fired after a warning. This applies to ANY communication tool, any violation of company codes.
Sig under construction since 1998.
"There has to be a business model where Microsoft and Yahoo and AOL get paid,"
I disagree. There doesn't have to be and there shouldn't be. The article mentions that IM should be like E-Mail. Well, Microsoft and Yahoo don't get paid just because some guy using a yahoo e-mail account e-mails someone using a hotmail account.
My advice to these "finanical" guys seeking standards - ignore it. The problem will solve itself in a matter of time. IM is too big of a thing to be contained within proprietary networks. As these all in one messenger programs like Trillian become the de-facto standard, companies like Microsoft, AOL, and Yahoo will have to give up their futile efforts of hording all their IM customers to themselves. Or better yet, if (when?) Jabber becomes the real standard, the corporations wont even have to worry about Microsoft or AOL anymore.
Yeah, just like they get paid for hosting all of our web pages, email, and ft.... Wait a second, we run our own servers for those things! Why the heck can't we have an IM system that's the same way? Run our own darned IM gateways/server, and just include it as part of your address (whoops - screen name, can't have anything technical sounding). User@server has worked well enough for email, heck with an LDAP3 directory backing it, email your address could easily be mapped to the IM presence on your server/gateway. If you really wanted to get fancy, add an IM record type to DNS.
Thinking like this is just plain stupid - there's no possible reason why this couldn't work without relying on MS/AOL/Yahoo to run our servers for us... Except they beat us to it. So how do we convince those planning to spend $$ to do it in a responsible fashion?
Think outside the... Hey, where'd the friggin' box go?
I even have a plugin loaded the checks my out-going messages(sic) spelling.
Infuriate left and right
Here it is ... we always knew friday the 13th was a freaky day...
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Thats like asking all the Internet Application developers to please just develop one do-it-all Internet application that uses the same Protocol.
The point is to have choice. Just because something becomes popular, lots of users start using it, and there is competition doesn't mean they have to interoperate or anything. Sure that would be a cool feature, but thats up to the developer, not the users. I don't go telling Linus Torvalds I want him to make sure Linux runs Windows binaries natively, at any cost.
Its not the telephone system, its not an essential service that all should have free access to. Hell, everyone still has free access to use AOL IM AND MSN, AND YAHOO! AND JABBER. They're only complaining because its a "hassle" to have all those programs installed to chat.
What next? The government decides AIM should interface with the public phone system so users without computers can still chat? Give me a break. There are no monopolies here. Its good healthy competition and it should remain like this. I wasn't forced to use AOL, I wasn't forced to use MSN, and I certainly wasn't forced to use Yahoo!. I'm still not even forced to have a home phone. Alright, enough ranting.
Whatever.
..There's a-dooin's a-transpirin'
is it just me, or are we trying to re-invent the wheel here? namely, re-inventing email with the added feature of knowing who in your address book is currently also logged in to their email client...
Jesus saves souls and redeems them for valuable cash prizes
At my workplace, we're trying out Yahoo! IM at the moment (with a view toward moving to something more secure behind our firewall). I've found it helpful for things it's appropriate for. It's saved me several long-distance phone calls already, and helped out in situations where I needed an answer quickly to give to someone on the phone.
;-)
How is this instant messaging any different than IRC? If I want to talk to people I hop on our private server and join the channel and talk away. As for people that aren't on IRC e-mail works just fine. If they're sitting in front of their desks chances are I will get a reply within a few minutes. I'd rather read my e-mail and reply when I have time than be a slave to IM popups all the time. Plus, do you really trust AOL, Yahoo, and MSN to see what you're chatting about, especially at work? I would think an IM system where you can setup your own private server and link it to external servers and ONLY route messages to external servers if they can't be reached on the private one would be a much more preferred solution for a standardized instant messaging protocol. But wait, how would they deliver ads then?
IM giants told to work it out
I can't wait for..
Financial giants told to shove it
Seriously, where do these jackasses get off?
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Does anyone know anything about the supposed unified IM service to beat Jabber and Gaim, written by United Coders? Their website is lacking any information on the project, but from what I hear its very promising.
"The lesson to be learned is not to take the comments on slashdot too literally." --Vinnie Falco, BearShare
Financial companies should just give up "some fatass company should sell us things" and look how IRC is superior to all those closed and semi-closed "messengers".
There is no compatibility problems between chat systems just like there is no compatibility problems with email. It's just closed email systems already disappeared, and closed messaging system are still there -- but people who rely on them deserve to suffer from their closedness.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Why don't the financial companies in quesion get together and decide amongst themselves what IM system they will all use? Seems to me that would solve their problems and keep a healthy competition amogst the current services.
While their at it, why don't get demand that all keyboard manufacurers all use the same exact layout. Or that all cars use the same size/type tires?
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
The natural Sametime client is pretty raw.
IBM has been developing a new Sametime client for internal use only for quite some time. It runs on Sash, IBM's RAD (sort of) platform. The external "weblication gallery" there is a subset of the internal one. What's really nice is that the "weblication manager" automatically updates managed apps a few times a week, without requiring a reboot. Its really very cool. Here is the Redbook on Sash.
Intelligent Life on Earth
Summary:
They are not good work tools, if you want to keep productivity high.
Absurd. I'm a software developer, and like most software developers I'm an introvert. As such I have a desire to use forms of communications like email or instant messaging wherever possible, so I don't proclaim to speak for anyone and everyone, but rather for my "type": I would say, without the slightest ounce of doubt, that instant messaging (and its close cousin email) have been incredibly productive in the workplace. Why? While the reasons are several, the primary reasons are that they are instantaneous to send (no looking up a phone number, dialing, waiting for ringing...waiting...waiting for voicemail menu...talking for 35 seconds...hitting pound...1....2), they are asynchronous (they don't demand the time of the other person instantly, but rather effectively install queues in your workplace so that people can work most efficiently at given tasks. Of course every workplace has the work avoiding blamecaster who'll always be spinning his wheels idle, protesting to all who'll listen that he's "waiting on so and so". Such people should be fired immediately), and you can get to the root of the matter far quicker than you can using alternate methods of communication. I won't bother exploring any of these because they should be self evident.
Having said that, I have met some very firm resistant from "old schoolers", and alternately people who I would best describe as "bullshitters": I worked with one gentlemen (to loosely use that term) once who was a unbelievable pathological liar- He would spin such a web of bullshit that it was just baffling. However, I noticed that he would never reply to an email, or send an IM, or even leave a voicemail for that matter: It always had to be a "quick meeting". Social hackers love the control that physical or voice meetings allow them as well (a control that is lost in asynchronous messaging).
Ok, I'll start off by saying I am not familiar with Jabber, so please do not flame me if it does what I am about to describe - which is "Peer to peer IM services."
Not client P2P, but server P2P. Follow the SMTP/IRC model. Anyone, ISP, company, whomever, can set up an IM server, just like they currently set up email servers (hell, you can probably combine the two.) Your IM name is similar to email address user@server. The client logs in to their IM server (user1@server1). When they try to lookup another user (user2@server2), the server opens a connection to server2.
If done right, all connections should be SSL encypted. And no more than 2 servers involved in any conversation. Like SMTP, the client uses standard protocol to talk to server and can log into any server he has an account with. The servers talk to each other and can negotiate common set of features (again like SMTP).
Like SMTP, this model is pretty scalable, and independant of a central server/service. But unlike SMTP, it can be build to be near real time and reliable and without large legacy overhead associated with email.
Unlike IRC, there is no need to keep a large number of servers always in sync for every message. A lifespan of the message is between client1 - server1 -server2 - client2.
The protocol is open so anyone can run their own server, their own client, etc. Large company like AOL/Yahoo/etc. can sell/give away their own accounts (like email accounts now) but any ISP can easily throw in this as service. No matter who your provicer is, you can communicate with anyone.
For a large company, like the financial companies mentions, it would be easy to run an internal server that can have secure connections with their partners - one that never even has to leave private networks - like internal email or in the olden days Lotus Notes peering modem networks (anyone still remember those?) . The security implications of this alone are worth the trouble for them. And if they are concerned with logging everything, it would be as easy as logging email if they are running their own servers (I do not like this, but I am sure it will be needed).
All in all, this is not all that different from SMTP, but SMTP is aging and has too much overhead to accomplish this. But it will be duplicating much of SMTP purpose and I can even see it replacing SMTP all together.
The two biggest problems I see is a - the big guys will not like this - the only way to shove ads down your throat is to make you use THEIR service and THEIR client - and there will be no reason to. But if it gains enough momentum, it can happen. The bigger problem I forsee is SPAM. Not sure how to keep it down without compromising the whole model.
It's my dream, what do ya think?
-Em
RelevantElephants: A Somatic WebComic...
The reality is it depends on the maturity of your team. All of my team members are mature enough to use IM as a tool. Those who were not mature enough were fired after a warning. This applies to ANY communication tool, any violation of company codes.
Any company that fires based upon the use of a communication tool deserves what will ultimately become of it, which is failure (apart from the criminal or sexually harrasing, of course). If someone is producing good quality whatever in good quantities, then it should be absolutely irrelevant if they are playing computer chess while chatting with their buddies about D&D. If, on the other hand, someone isn't producing, then it shouldn't matter that they put in 60 hour weeks (as is usually the case with non-producers: Martyrdom through incompetence), and that they sit starting hardcore at code from 8am until 6pm every day, they should be moved to a different job, or ultimately fired.
The way I manage is entirely output based, and no amount of ass kissing or excuse making can make me ignore a lack of contribution to the project, but on the flip side I don't care if someone works 12 hours a week and has slashdot on auto-reload: If the output is there, then how can they be faulted? Too many people bring a factory line mentality to software development, and unfortunately such a mentality is often based on envy: You have to keep everyone beaten down to the same level to ensure that the lowly doesn't feel green with envy.
MS does not 'play nice,' they only give the appearance of doing so to distract you while easing a hand into the pocket in which your wallet resides. :-)
In an alternate universe, this is going on:
1) MSN Messenger (MSNM) interoperates with AIM.
2) MSNM is welded into XP.
3) MS says, "Hey, Windows users! Why bother to download AIM when you can just use MSNM, which is already in XP and lets you send IMs to your AIM-using friends?"
4) Lazy users, content to just use what's already there, abandon using AIM in droves because hey, they don't have to download MSNM.
5) MSNM becomes the dominant IM app.
6) AIM usage drops. AIM ad revenues sink. AIM development budget and staff is cut. AIM starts lagging behind MSNM, feature-wise. AIM becomes IM also-ran.
7) MSNM gradually adopts a new protocol that is DMCA-protectable to lock out 3rd-party clients.
8) After the new protocol is in place, one day MSNM users can suddenly no longer IM people using AIM. Microsoft PR spews forth some mumbo-jumbo about 'IM technology heading off in a different direction' as an explanation.
9) A subsequent Windows version or service pack renders AIM inoperable. AIM, long un-updated, finally has a stake driven through its heart.
10) Time to start charging for use of MSNM.
~Philly
Marketing and fey technologism will never replace the central hub of the Internet.
--Blair
Wasn't one of the conditions of the AOLTW megamerge that AIM must be essentially opened up, allowing competing IM programs to interoperate with it? What happened to that, or am I missing something?
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
In other news, some of the top Wall Street brass asked the internet today if they wouldn't mind picking one IM protocol and port to make it easier to ban/snoop at work. The internet responded by eating the free lunch provided for the meeting, and then promptly leaving.
If someone is producing good quality whatever in good quantities, then it should be absolutely irrelevant if they are playing computer chess while chatting with their buddies about D&D.
Exactly, and I wish more managers realized this.
My current managers have a reasonable handle on it, but I've had people in the past that simply did not understand that someone could be productive without constantly looking busy. I talk to friends outside the company via IM quite a lot during work hours, not to mention browsing slashdot, yet I'm still the most productive person in my department. Because I'm a good employee, my overseers turn a blind eye to pretty much anything I feel like doing as long as my work quality stays high. Other people in the department slacked off playing games and such when they really weren't good enough workers to afford the distraction, and they no longer work for the company. It's really that simple, and anyone who thinks the road to high productivity is rules upheld with an iron fist is just deluding themselves.
"If a man hasn't discovered something he will die for, he isn't fit to live" -- MLK, Jr.
My first question... Why? Beyond the fact that it'd make our lives as consumers easier. It's like pleading with the 5 major ketchup makers in the US to sit down and brand one ketchup. I could use any number of products as an analogy, but I have to ask, why don't these great almighty 5 finacial firms just sit down and -gasp!- Pick one! Sure, it'd make our lives easier, but "they" generally don't care about you or me, so I ask: What is the real reason? What's going on behind the scenes? Offhand, I'm thinking one system would be easier for someone to control, level taxes against on, whatever. Speculation, but my spider sense is tingling... No, that's just heart burn. Nevermind.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Yes, if you want to keep productivity high
it's much more efficient to get up
and look for your coworker every time
you need to ask them something.
Considered harmful.
I agree somewhat. Personally, I think people should be paid by output, but that's difficult to measure. You do twice as much, or the same amount twice as good? You get paid twice as much. In this case, I fully agree with what you say.
However, I don't completely agree with what you said if you're paid by the hour. Now, a little fooling around never hurt anyone as long as they are productive anyway, but if I were a manager/etc. and I'm paying you $x per hour, I think I should be able to expect you to be working for almost all of the time I'm paying you for.
One would also think (although I'll bet there isn't actually a regulation about this) that a financial firm requiring its customers to use proprietary technology from a company on which they are also doing financial analysis would be a bit of a conflict of interest. Not that *that* would ever happen on Wall Street....
Go Badgers! -- #include "std/disclaimer.h"
If you're just looking for a way to communicate internally, as a supplement (or even replacement) to email I would suggest a program I found surfing the net. I didn't write it but I've been playing around with it on a few computers in the lab where I work and it's pretty nifty.
"Peer to peer network messenger"
There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't
This is part of the reason that, for years, MSFT allowed rampant pairacy the Office suite. It was not about mindshare. For every copy of Office out there, the value of the copy of Office that some business legally bought off the shelf becomes more valuable because there are more people whom they can interchange documents with. This means that it is more likely that the next person will buy a copy of Office. This is why fax machines were originally sold in pairs.
Now AOL has had a history of cutting Trillian off from AIM while MSN gives the facade of playing nice. If MSN helps trillian keep current, then they are increasing the value of the MSN messenger client, thus indirectly hurting AIM. Therefore MSFT is using AOL's moves to isolate AIM as the tools for their (AOL's) own demise. Nice.
Like so much we read today, this is really about control. The financial institutions have large investments in AOL/Time-Warner, Microsoft, and Yahoo. They would like nothing more than for an elite club to control and profit from instant messaging. They know that if something isn't done quick, Jabber will take over as the de facto standard and eliminate the profit opportunity.
It looks to me like they are trying to form an organization, similar to the DVD-CCA, which would dictate payment and conduct requirements amongst member companies. The organization (let's call it Chatter) would form an artificial barrier to entry for startup vendors. If you want to enter the instant messaging market, you will have to pay a modest fee ($100,000) to read the protocol specifications, and agree to pay an annual fee to communicate with the other vendors.
Each member of Chatter would maintain their own servers. If you want your servers to communicate with other Chatter members, you have to become a member yourself. It does not matter if you're running a Jabber server, AIM server, or some other instant messaging server. If you want to communicate with the vast majority of IM users, you have to join Chatter.
In the end, almost all instant messages will be filtered through a few small companies. In order to pay for the artificial costs (and of course generate extra revenue), vendors will force advertisements upon their customers, track who people communicate with, and otherwise turn all aspects of life into a commercial venture. Who knows, maybe they'll also archive conversations for law enforcement.
What needs to be done, is for someone to smack them hard with an anti-trust suit. Of course, we all know that will never happen. If people would just switch to Jabber (before the formation of an organization like Chatter), this would all become a non-issue.
Nope. I work Tech Support (Graveyard)for a company with offices in many countries. I have Wintel, UNIX and Network guys everywhere. And everyone is on my contact list, from the CIO (so I know if he's upstairs), to our UNIX guy in Singapore. If a call or ticket comes in, or a situation arises, I can - at a glance - at 4AM - tell who's in, and if they're actually using their PC. Instant messaging someone for whom it is a minor issue to perform some small task (restart something, whatever) certainly beats the hell out of Dialing For Dollars and waking people up who then have to boot, connect, fix it and try to get back to sleep. It also beats calling the guys overseas, who I frequently cannot understand. For some reason, these guys have perfect spelling and grammar on Trillian.
Interesting.. I remember I started using IM in 1998 (ICQ) at the age of 13, in the earlier days before ICQ spam etc.
These days Instant Messaging is something everyone I know uses - instead of "call you tonight" it's "talk to you on MSN tonight". 99% of the people I know who use IM in Australia use MSN, and I think that's mostly because "everyone uses it", so, even if they dislike MSN, they use it anyway in order to talk to everyone.
In the last two years my contact list has multiplied by 10, as EVERYONE uses it, probably as much, or MORE than they would use the telephone (most people I know are under 20).
A friend I know from the US who lives here now told me that MSN however was not "the standard" for IM communication there however. He said AOL had the lion's share of the IM users.
I still have an ICQ account and jabber account, however I really don't have a need for them, as there are probably only about 5 contacts in total on these services that aren't on my MSN list.
1. the messages
It's not about just messaging "wassup" and other time-wasters back and forth to people. It's often two traders on different sides of the floor communicating prices back and forth, being able to IM clients from some research tool, broadcasting large market events/news to everyone at once, tech support getting IMed when systems start going through the death throes (followed by pages, etc). It might be getting IM'd and having the message go to a pager if you're away from your desk, or to email if your pager is down.
2. productivity
Working on multinational teams, or in different buildings, or using chatrooms to say stuff like "I'm taking down the test system" when you don't want to disrupt the guy next to you (and let 10 other developers descretely know what the story is) enhance productivity. Sure, there may be some bullshit floating around on IM, as well, but investment bank IT people are pretty industrious as a whole (at least from what I've seen), and a good number of employees over the entire firm take desk lunches -- implying they'll stay on task pretty well.
3. logging/external service providers
A big advantage to running an IM through your firm is that you can log everything (good for SEC, etc). I sincerely doubt that the banks are looking at having all of their internal stuff go through MSN/external or AOL/external. Anything that happens is going to be kept local unless it HAS to go outside.
4. The current mess
My company runs an proprietary chat server, jabber, sametime, and some yahoo gateway, and probably more crap that I don't know about. It'd be BRILLIANT if everybody (including clients) could standardize on one message format -- it could save all of us loads of trouble.
5. jabber
As good as jabber is in theory, the open source server components used to be pretty rough (last fall). The commercial stuff might be nice, but I remember spending loads of time hacking at the XDB/XML database and thinking "Damn, this is really not flexible for enterprise-level usage" (i.e. 20-80,000 users, multiple continents/offices/divisions). It would be nice if everyone standardized on it and everything was made bank-reliable (a system going down can literally mean millions of dollars lost). Maybe all the banks should devote a few good programmers each to fixing it up, or donate a mil to the jabber foundation or something.
Just a few random points (I'm in a hurry)
there is no thing
what else could you want?
If you get payed by the hour, and you can spend 2 hours a day playing chess online, you haven't been given enough to do. I mean, come one. Its a job. Payment for services rendered and such.
Mod point free since 2001
The trap I think you've fallen into here is to think that because something can be abused that it will be, on a large scale.
The fact is that aside from a certain initial novelty factor - most employees will spend most of their time focussing on their job. They'll occasionally use the IM for personal stuff, just like they make the odd personal phone call or email. If they abuse that then it'll show up in the quality of their work, because a few geniuses aside, most people can't make 2hours output look like 8. So there are always ways to spot and deal with lazy people. But if you start out assuming your workforce is lazy what does that say about you as an employer?
The remaining questions are - is it useful and is it safe. I suspect that it'll be more useful in some types of job than others. I work in Tech Support and we used to have a team based in 3 different countries. IM was very useful. Since then we've been centralised and we don't use it so much. (Note - we weren't ordered not to use it - we just stopped because it's no longer useful)
As for safety - it's definitely something that should be protected behind a firewall. I don't know the details of that but I assume it can be done.
With the current available OPEN protocols, there no reason why it can't be achieved.
Use e-mail (SMTP+POP/IMAP), and TALK.
Talk is peer-to-peer. No need to go through a server that can be brought down.
The e-mail part is to disseminate your IP address when it changes. The chat application simply e-mails your IP address to your correspondant's e-mail addresses; the chat client looks periodically for those specially marked messages, and updates it's own IP address database.
Big banks need not worry, as they have fixed IP addresses; their small fry, when they connect, simply sends out a flurry of small messages to all the correspondents.
And to remove the risk of flaky ISP mail servers, the program could connect directly to the big company servers; a special protocol could be used in case the ISP blocks port 25; heck, make it HTTP on port 80!
This way, the system is completely open, and doesn't need any commitees to implement in three years.
Why on earth would financial companies ask IM companies to cooperate? Are they suddenly finding their brokers and back-room deal makers suddenly IMing all the time? Wouldn't they have banned such behavior from their intranets and extranets?
Sounds to me like they want to make the IM companies easier to acquire. (How you can build a company on something as nebulous as IMing is beyond me.)
-- haaz.
People, if you need to communicate within your company with some sort of IM, just set up an IRC server for pete's sake!!!
Sorry if that was a tad incoherent, but it hit all the notes that I intended.
The thing about loppings of heads should have been more closely targeted towards the wannabe inclinations of the poster.
My segue'(sp?) sucked.
Brak: What's THAT?
Thundercleese: A light switch.. of TOTAL DEVASTATION!
I'm not trolling. I simply have alot of experience that contradicts your conclusion as you stated. I also have alot of people at work who's experience contradicts your research. I've asked you several times to back up what you say, but at most you've given one sentence, and that sentence seems to be your belief, not any hard facts.
Your only response has been to call me a troll or say 'ready my 20 page paper.' Well if you had credible research you could use pieces of it here. So far i haven't heard anything credible.
I don't see how i'm being narrowminded. You stated something i disagree with. I have my experience to back up my point of view. You have offered nothing in your posts. Maybe if you said something that might have seemed like a fact i would have requested your paper to read more. But you never did, and you still haven't. Instead you simply try to ward me off as a troll. Its too bad they hide karma now; someone with Excellent karma usually is not a troll. OH well.